The Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau on Tuesday signed an agreement to establish a DNA database of protected trees in mountainous areas to crack down on illegal logging activities.
“This agreement is part of the Investigation Bureau’s crime fighting program for National Land Conservation, which includes protecting preserved forests, cracking down on illegal mining and excavation, and other criminal activities that damage the environment,” Investigation Bureau Director-General Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said.
The Investigation Bureau and the Forestry Bureau are to establish a DNA database of Taiwan cypress and Taiwan cedar that “will enable us to make fast identification of suspected protected timber and document materials believed to have been illegally logged for prosecutors,” Tsai said.
“More than 2,000 cases of illegal logging in mountain areas have been investigated by law enforcement agencies in the past five years. More than 5,900m3 of timber from protected trees worth about NT$1.78 billion (US$58.65 million) has been illegally harvested in that time,” Forestry Bureau Director Lin Hua-ching (林華慶) said.
Illegal logging of preserved forests has caused extensive damage to the environment, including alpine ecology, water and soil conservation, and has caused the destruction of tourism resources and the function of forests in mitigating the effects of climate change, Lin said.
As part of the collaboration teams from the Forestry Bureau are to collect tree samples from mountain areas, focusing on Taiwan cypress and Taiwan cedar, which are protected under the Forestry Act (森林法), officials said.
“The tree samples would be analyzed using new molecular techniques to pinpoint their characteristic genetic markers and catalogued in a DNA database. The database would identify the DNA markers which show which trees come from a particular area. It would enable authorities to determine the origin of suspected illegally logged timber and boost conviction rates,” Tsai said.
“Prosecution was successful in about 1,500 of more than 2,000 illegal logging cases in the past five years, with about 3,400 people convicted,” Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said.
“However, there were a few hundred cases in which the charges were dropped and most of these were due to problems identifying the timber,” he said.
“When I was younger I wanted to work protecting the mountain forests, but found out rangers have a tough job, that they have to patrol a large area and their lives are threatened by illegal logging operators, so I gave up on that idea,” Chiu said of his aspiration to become a forest ranger.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
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